A G K Y R A

John McCain named Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate. Palin has only been Governor since 2006. Does this undermine McCain’s message that Obama doesn’t have enough experience to be President?

Certainly not. Obama has only been a U.S. Senator since 2005, just a year longer than Palin’s term in office so far (though, to be fair, Obama did serve in his state’s legislature for several years before that).

And there’s one important difference in their quality of experience: Palin has executive experience, which Obama completely lacks.

Another important point is that Palin isn’t campaigning to be President, but Vice President, unlike Barack Obama. We’re not electing her on the assumption that she will step into John McCain’s shoes in the next four years. Barack Obama, however, wants us to elect him President right out of the gate, without any executive experience whatsoever!

We have good reason to worry about Obama’s competencies, and by the same token, I wouldn’t support Palin for President now either. So maybe the Democrats should change their ticket to Biden-Obama after all.

Oh, I almost forgot, nobody really cared much for the idea of Biden as President earlier this year.

Or in 1988.

What’s more, Obama has written a couple books, done lots of debating, written bills and lobbied his fellow Senators to support them, and done some teaching, but when has Barack Obama ever had a real job?

Joe Biden got elected to the Senate just eight short years after getting out of law school, at the ripe old age of 30. When has Joe Biden ever had a real job?

Sarah Palin has. She working as a sports reporter for an Alaska television station and as a commercial fisherman with her husband, and has experience in other levels of government as well.

Neither Barack Obama nor Joe Biden has ever had to make an executive decision about anything except their own political campaigns.

Sarah Palin has. Or to put it another way, Sarah Palin has more of the right kind of experience than Barack Obama and Joe Biden put together. Do we want a President and Vice President who have records for taking action and making hard choices, or a couple of fraternizing legislators with lots of experience pushing papers around in committee meetings?

You can learn more about Sarah Palin at Palintology.

Barack Obama’s speech last night, in acceptance of his party’s nomination to be their candidate for President, was supposed to provided lots of details about just what “change” means. Did Obama actually deliver any substance last night? And most importantly of all: was he entirely honest? The answer to both questions is NO!

Obama talks out of both sides of his mouth. Washington has done nothing but talk about our oil addiction during the last 30 years, Obama says, and he then blames John McCain who “has been there for 26 of them. … And today, we import triple the amount of oil as the day that Sen. McCain took office.”

What about Joe Biden’s 35 years in office? Or Ted Kennedy’s whopping 46 years in office — almost half a century! How much oil do we import today compared to the early years of the Dodge Dart? Yet, Ted Kennedy “embodies the spirit of service.” Joe Biden is “one of the finest statesmen of our time.”

Obama didn’t bat an eyelash when he slandered McCain by saying that he “defined the middle class as someone making under 5 million dollars a year.” The joke Obama is alluding to was made by McCain at the Saddleback Civil Forum on August 16, when Rick Warren asked McCain (as he had asked Obama earlier), how McCain defined the rich. McCain laughingly said someone who made 5 million or more — the whole audience laughed with him, and so did I as I watched from home.

McCain’s point was that we want all Americans to prosper. McCain, unlike Obama, doesn’t want to “define the rich” and make them a target for tax punishment. We don’t want to bring the rich down, we want to create an environment in which everyone else has the opportunity to prosper also. Obama knows full well that McCain wasn’t “defining the middle class.” But, as is apparent, not only does Barack Obama have no scruples against deceiving his hearers and slandering his opponent, he also doesn’t have a sense of humor.

On the subject of taxes, Obama charges that John McCain hasn’t proposed one penny of tax relief for 100 million Americans. OK, Barack, are you proposing one penny of tax relief? That will cost you a million dollars. How about a dime of tax relief? $10 million. A dollar of tax relief? $100 million. Would the voters be happier with $10 of tax relief? That will mean somebody has to pay $1 billion. Get the idea? Exactly how much tax relief are you proposing, and exactly how are you proposing to pay for it?

But, according to Obama, the average American income has gone down $2,000 under George W. Bush. My first reaction to that figure is: Is that all? Seriously??? All Obama’s righteous indignation about the hardship Americans face is about a lousy two grand? Maybe this is a mental recession after all!

Wait: maybe Obama wants $2,000 of tax relief to offset the reduced income. Let’s calculate that: 100 million Americans X $2,000 = $200 billion dollars. And he hasn’t even talked about health care yet!

Obama defines “change” as “a tax code that doesn’t reward the lobbyists who wrote it, but the American workers and small businesses who deserve it.” Obama certainly doesn’t want you to watch these videos from the ABC News investigative report “On the Money Trail.” It seems that lobbyists and politicians were going wild at the Democratic National Convention in Denver, and Obama, who had the power to stop them, didn’t lift a finger. “Change” is an empty marketing slogan aimed at an unthinking consumer culture.

And after you watch that installment, read this report at the ABC News website.

“I will eliminate capital-gains taxes for the small businesses and the startups that will create the high-wage, high-tech jobs of tomorrow,” Barack Obama confidently proclaims. But what does that mean? What small businesses are being crippled by capital gains tax? Small business owners pay capital gains tax, much later in a company’s life cycle. But that’s not a problem for the businesses themselves. So what is Obama talking about here?

Obama said earlier this month that he wants to raise capital gains tax from 15% to more than 20% for people who earn more than $250,000. So would this be an exception? Or would he only eliminate capital gains tax for business owners who didn’t make more than $250,000? Or is he talking about capital gains tax for the business itself, which is pretty much worthless? As usual with Obama, we have the appearance of substance, but a closer look reveals ambiguity, doubletalk, or nonsense.

One last comment:

… And to the next vice president of the United States, Joe Biden, I thank you. I am grateful to finish this journey with one of the finest statesmen of our time, a man at ease with everyone from world leaders to the conductors on the Amtrak train he still takes home every night.

I guess he is at ease with everyone if he’s taking Amtrak conductors home every night. Their home or his? Nyuk, nyuk.